BLACK AND WHITE AND
READ ALL OVER... OR, WHAT YOU WON'T READ IN CHARLES MOOSE'S NEW BOOK

By
Mary Starrett

September
18, 2003

NewsWithViews.com

The author of the book that’s billed as the “story
of the nation’s largest single manhunt” is getting lots of face time and
ink. But there are some pertinent facts you won’t read in Charles Moose’s
book “Three Weeks In October”.

If you can get past the man’s abysmal attempts at
verbal communication in these interviews about his book, you will hear
him talk about the challenges facing his department’s efforts to catch
the Washington area sniper .

What he doesn’t talk about in his book is some damning
evidence that John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo could have been caught
a lot sooner but for Moose’s insistence that the killer or killers HAD
to be white. Despite eyewitness accounts of black or “dark skinned” drivers
in the areas of the shootings, Moose (who can’t get past race to save
his life) refused to entertain even the thought that the sniper(s) could
be anything other than white.

How many people died while Moose was leading a Keystone
Cop search for white guys in a white van?

It wasn’t until the killers practically gave themselves
up by claiming involvement in an Alabama murder that police were able
to break the case. If these guys hadn’t gotten cocky Moose might still
be on the lookout for melanin-deprived white van drivers.

Moose’s account of what was known when, doesn’t
stack up against information which came out later. The timeline of who
knew what, it appears, had been deliberately distorted. According to investigative
reporter Jim Rarey, Muhammad’s license number was entered into the FBI’s
database eleven times during the span of the shootings with no prior rap
sheets showing up. How could this be? The guy had a list of priors as
long as my arm. What happened ?

Another question begs to be asked-one that doesn’t
get answered in Moose’s book either-has to do with why the Montgomery
County police chief’s union claims that Moose had the goods on the sniper
suspects long before he acknowledged it. While his officer’s lives were
being unnecessarily endangered, Moose antagonized them further by opposing
a pay raise for them while himself getting a raise to over $160,000 which
made him the highest paid chief in that part of the country.

Moose has always had a fondness for lining his pockets.
The day he turned 50 (this past August) he began collecting the pension
he had coming from his days on the Portland, Oregon police force where
he was a chief for five years. That pension nets him close to $6,000 a
month.

But that’s not the only way Charles Moose pays the
bills. Besides the reported $170,000 advance on his book, Moose has made
a rather lucrative habit out of racial-bias lawsuits. His second such
successful scam involves the suit he brought against the Marriot chain.
According to the Washington Post and what was subsequently an Associated
Press story [1], “Moose sought a financial settlement this year from Marriot
International Inc. after alleging he was the victim of racial discrimination
while staying at the Ilihani resort in Ko Olina”.

Here’s how the good chief worked his latest scam:
(I say latest, because this wasn’t the first time Moose has worked the
race-in –your-face-for money- angle). According to the hotel, Chief Moose
wandered into an unfinished area reserved for hotel employees. When asked
to produce proof (a room key) that he was, in fact, a guest, he began
to argue with security officials. Long story short- Moose asked for $100,000
each for his and his wife’s “suffering” and “distress”.

The Marriot paid him an undisclosed amount of money
just to shut him up. Moose never mentioned this in his book, despite the
long-winded recitations of injustices he’d endured during his life as
a poor black man from the deep south. Moose has a thing about his skin
color. When he was not cashing in on racial “hush’ money, it seems the
erstwhile police chief was being disciplined (in four incidents in Portland
,Oregon alone) for losing his temper with average people over what he
considered poor treatment by whites. Having been disciplined for his anger
problem while in that city’s employ, Moose was ordered to take anger management
classes. Those of us in the Portland area became accustomed to reports
of his “explosive temper”.

Moose divorced his black wife and married a white
woman who, oddly enough has joined her husband in a business venture-
they conduct anger management classes.

Listening to Charles Moose while he was chief in
Portland, during the press conferences during the D.C. sniper spree, and
now during his book tour, it’s difficult to reconcile his lack of verbal
acuity and the Masters and a Ph.D. degrees he’s reportedly earned (albeit
degrees in urban studies). But, according to one published report, Moose
enrolled at Portland State University, flew through the classes at the
speed of light and emerged with lots of letters after his name. Some speculate
Moose got his degrees along with a whole tide of Turkish Ph.D. candidates
who, some say, made it look like PSU was nothing more than a “diploma
mill “ because of massive grants from the Turkish government.[1] This
could go a long way in explaining the apparent disparity in his abilities.

These are but a few of the things about Charles
Moose’s life you won’t read about in “Three Weeks In October”.

Charles Moose has an anger problem, and specifically
a problem with white people. He’s not exactly a crackerjack when it comes
to police work, but hey, Janet Reno liked him enough to reward him with
a special commendation in Portland and a recommendation for the Montgomery
County police chief’s gig.

It’s anybody’s guess where Moose will surface when
the book tour’s over. My money’s on seeing him in some high level federal
law enforcement agency. Because, after all, here in the United States,
it’s finally- as Martin Luther King had hoped for- all about being judged
strictly on the content of one’s character, not the color of one’s skin.

Mary Starrett was on television for 21 years
as a news anchor, morning talk show host and medical reporter. For the
last 5 years she hosted a radio program. Mary is a frequent guest on radio
talk shows. E-Mail M123STAR@aol.com

"What he doesn’t talk about
in his book is some damning evidence that John Allen Muhammad and Lee
Boyd Malvo could have been caught a lot sooner but for Moose’s insistence
that the killer or killers HAD to be white."